Cartoon Reflections of a World Gone Wild

The first thing I must tell you
is that my daughter flew away
this morning.  We built her life
to be fine and free.
And then there's Oso, still

riding Mescalito everywhere
the old gods dwell:  high in
granite Rocky Mountain outcrop ceremony
or in the desert, eating bean & nopal

soup while blue

Slithers the sky.   While Rudolfo

sits wise as an old wolf watching
the city go by.  Still
in reach of the great
unwinding Milky Way.

I am here, in the late summer
heat drinking red wine,
trying to conjure Kerouac.
It's as simple as that—

for all of the loneliness

I've learned from my the poetry

there is nothing
as dark as the empty page.
And then there are those crackpots
Who think I've lived on stage.

Like a crazy Batman with bad
knees and the sadness of ghosts--
I sometimes wish I'd roast
In my own reflection, that
I am lord of the Night Sky

Lord of the Smoking Mirror
gazing deeply only to see
himself unwind like a widower
in the hallway, looking
for a light switch before the stairs fail him.